Busy days and heavy liftings
Stavanger’s biggest nursing home has embraced innovative medical equipment, such as the Tidewave Mattress. One of the nurses shares her perspective from her time before using the mattress and how it has improved her everyday work life ever since.
It is no secret that the nurse’s work day is busy filled with a lot of heavy lifting and stress. There is a worldwide nursing shortage. This means that the nurses today are working really hard to take care of all of their patients. Implementing medical equipment to reduce the amount of heavy lifting is therefore important to accommodate the nurses’ busy days.
Amalie, a nurse at Stavanger’s biggest nursing home, talks about the challenges with manually positioning patients. “Bedridden patients often require a lot of resources. […] it is optimal to turn them every two hours”, she says.
“Patients who use Tidewave will get uninterrupted sleep all night. [...] which strengthens them both cognitively and physically.”
The routine before Tidewave
According to the guidelines made by the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, patients with a risk of pressure ulcers should be positioned every two hours. When positioning a patient at night, it is very common for them to wake up. Amalie tells us that this can make them anxious and afraid because they often do not understand why you have to position them in the middle of the night. “They may resist being turned, hold on to the bed and just refuse to be turned. This can result in a very bad conscience”, Amalie says.
With one press of a button
Amalie can happily share that the patients who are using the Tidewave Mattress avoid the awakenings the nurses have to do during the night. The patients have a better sleep quality and get more sleep overall. In addition, they are more alert during the day and have energy to participate in activities.
“The Tidewave Mattress is a mattress we are lucky enough to have here at the nursing home”, she says. “It is easy to use and we press one button in the evening and then the mattress does the work for us”.
Watch her full story in the video below.
”The Tidewave Mattress is a good addition to everyday working life.